The same way Jesus did anything that humans do (e.g., grow, speak, think discursively, learn, sleep, suffer, etc.): by His humanity.

Proinsias wrote:I don't think you are hearing me. Preference for ice cream is a moral issue

And that, brothers and sisters, is the kind of foolishness you get people who insist on denying biblical theism. A good illustration of any as the length people will go to avoid acknowledging basic truths.

This might be hard to understand, but all of our statements about God are merely analogous. We're identifying attributes that emanate out from God (such as those we see and experience in our world), yet the perfections of such are found in just who God is (the great "I AM WHO I AM"). So then it is true that God doesn't have emotion, this being qualified by "in the same way and sense" that we have emotions. Yet, I think many Divine Simplicitans leave it at that and seem to too quickly to dismiss God's emotion.

I'm not sure I'd classify "emotion" as an attribute, yet it is perhaps something less that emanates out from certain attributes. when Jac says God has no emotions, I'm sure he also sees there is something about God which epitomizes those perfections from which emotion is a procession. For example, "love" and "compassion" appear to have some kind of irreducible emotionally felt part to them, these (love, compassion) are attributes we might assign to God since they emanate out from God (we experience them in our world). Zooming in on these attributes themselves, we can see how emotions often emanate out from such also (which we experience in who we are, and see in others in our created world)... therefore "love" and "compassion" could be seen as a 1st order attributes that proceed out from God ("divine attributes") whereas "emotion" perhaps a 2nd order procession that emanates out from such divine attributes. This is just my own language here I'm using, so hopefully I've been clear and precise enough to remain faithful to Divine Simplicity.

So then, while it is true that God doesn't have "emotion" in the same way we do, understand God also doesn't have "existence" in the same way we do. We would say that God doesn't have "existence", but better say God is existence. Similarly, God is whatever perfections that express "emotion" itself. Therefore, it can be argued quite strongly I think that God really does have "emotion" more so than us even, but via His Divine attributes in the right areas (i.e., emanating out from love, compassion, righteousness) rather than wrong areas (i.e., hateful and evil intentions).

"Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Romans 10:13)

I broadly agree with what you're saying, but with one caveat. You are absolutely right that everything we say about God is analogous. But some things are more analogous than others, which I think you agree with and recognize when you speak of a sort of secod order procession. So it's true, for instance, that God doesn't have wisdom or existence or intelligence or will or personhood or whatever in the same sense we do. Obviously not. He just is those things, and all of that just is Him (in Him, anyway). That's how we talk about attributes.

But we have to be a little more careful with something like emotions. Because while there is certainly something analogous to our emotions in God (so we can speak of God loving or hating), it's not quite analogous in the same way that there is something analogous to thought or will. The latter of these are perfections. Now emotions, strictly, aren't perfections. But they are definitely rooted in perfections. So love is related to the good and that to which we are ordered. I love good food, and that by nature, because my body is ordered towards eating. I love my wife, because my body is ordered toward having a mate. I love God, because my very essence is ordered towards Him. That's just what "love" is -- the ordering towards something. And so, in humans, that has a certain biological expression, and that biological expression is the emotion we call love. Moveover, by the logic and biology, that ordering and emotion give way to another emotion: desire. Here is where we want what we love. And from that, when we attain what we desire and love, we experience this other emotion called joy. By contrast, when something is contrary to how we are ordered, we hate it. So I hate poison and murder and evil and bad music. So that biological response gives way to an emotion called aversion. And when I obtain what I am averse to, I experience an emotion called sadness. The same kind of analysis can be applied to hope and courage, and on the opposite side of those, despair and fear, as well as to anger.

Now it's clear to me that we can think of all of those things in God -- His anger, sadness, hope, joy, love, etc. But really these aren't "fundamental" ideas. They are all related to God's will and/or His intellect. His will insofar as He wills things to happen or not happen and His intellect insofar as how He judges what has happened. So I, for one, would say that God's emotions are an analogy of an analogy. You could say that God's emotions are second order analogies, I suppose. But I think we just need to be very careful here, because I don't think it would be proper to think of God's essence under the auspices of one of those emotional analogies in the same way it is to think of His essence under the auspices of a proper perfection. Yes, the Scriptures say that God is Love, but that language, while very true, is very poetic. John wasn't making an ontological statement about God's nature. It's easy, then for us to say that He is Love. But is God Sadness? Is God Despair? Is God Fear? Because if attribute them to God, that's what you have to say. I'm not comfortable with that.

Again, that's not to disagree with you, K. It's more to unpack how I'd nuance your "second order" idea a bit more.

Proinsias wrote:I don't think you are hearing me. Preference for ice cream is a moral issue

And that, brothers and sisters, is the kind of foolishness you get people who insist on denying biblical theism. A good illustration of any as the length people will go to avoid acknowledging basic truths.

Jac3510 wrote:
Now it's clear to me that we can think of all of those things in God -- His anger, sadness, hope, joy, love, etc. But really these aren't "fundamental" ideas. They are all related to God's will and/or His intellect. His will insofar as He wills things to happen or not happen and His intellect insofar as how He judges what has happened. So I, for one, would say that God's emotions are an analogy of an analogy. You could say that God's emotions are second order analogies, I suppose. But I think we just need to be very careful here, because I don't think it would be proper to think of God's essence under the auspices of one of those emotional analogies in the same way it is to think of His essence under the auspices of a proper perfection. Yes, the Scriptures say that God is Love, but that language, while very true, is very poetic. John wasn't making an ontological statement about God's nature. It's easy, then for us to say that He is Love. But is God Sadness? Is God Despair? Is God Fear? Because if attribute them to God, that's what you have to say. I'm not comfortable with that..

I see emotions as an expression from a procession, too, but I see them as set states. I don't see God in motion, but I see processions and emanations from Him (and within Him by relationship/nature). And I see those in the processions (us acting in this world) moving into different states to God. For example: To move from being in a state of wrath to God, one would have to be considered righteous (which is being repentant through Christ). I think God hates and that hatred is an expression from the procession of perfection we could identify as Him being justice. And the result of me being unjust is to fall into His Hatred/wrath. I think there are certain expressions that we could identify such as sadness that could come from the perfection of Mercy. He knows loss of souls He wills to be with who choose not to be (and their experienced eternal fate). I don't see Him changing or being affected by what processes from Him. I see them as natural states from Him and what comes from Him can also have the potential to choose how they are toward Him (natural result of creating self-determining beings).

Jac, why do you think John wasn't being literal when he said God is Love?

I agree quite a bit with what you've written here, Mallz. So long as we understand that His hatred and mercy are not two different parts of him, such that when we are unrighteous we relate to Him through this part called wrath and when we are hurting we relate to Him through this part called mercy, then you've stated it very well. To the extent that we speak of divine emotions, we are (like when we're discussing divine attributes) talking about the way that our intellect conceives of this selfsame essence. We are the variable, not Him. It's just that in the case of emotions, our language is analogous twice over. That is, in the case of the normal attributes, we are speaking analogously by one step. So God has power, but because He is identical with His essence and existence, the way in which we think about His power is only similar to how we think of our own. Or put differently, we identify in ourselves this thing called power, and we see that God can be thought of in some very real sense of having power. That's one way to consider the divine essence. Since we are finite, we cannot consider it, in itself, fully and completely, so we have to think about it within one particular mode, and that mode must be from our own perspective. And since our perspective is that of a composite, temporal entity, so we think of God that way. And so while there truly is something "like" power in God, that "likeness" makes our language analogical.

But in the case of emotions, we have a double analogy. So let's take sadness. When you feel sadness (or any other emotion), you have an intellectual judgment of a particular thing and then a physical reaction to that judgment. So a thing judged one way with this particular physical reaction, we call sadness. Now, in God, we have judgments of things (by analogy, of course). But we also have this analogy of an analogy in the idea of a physical reaction. God obviously doesn't have a physical reaction since He isn't physical. Nor does God react. But insofar as the physical reaction is closely related to the nature of the judgment ("that is sad!" we say), there is a sense in which we can see a similar type of "reaction" in God. So that's why I say such language is a double analogy: an analogy of an analogy.

Anyway, as to your question, I say that simply because John wasn't trying to write a metaphysical thesis. If you had asked John if he identified this emotion called love with God Himself, He would be confused by that. He would talk about how important love is and how it trumps all things. But even then he'd be less interested in the emotion per se and what it is rooted in . . . the idea of putting someone else's needs before your own, of doing what is good for them first, and so on. The "others orientedness" of love is what he would focus on, not the physical reaction in your body we experience as "love." John understood clearly that God doesn't have a body. He says that God is Spirit, and spirits don't have physical reactions to anything and so don't feel "love" in precisely the same sense we do. They don't feel anything sense feeling is something that bodies do! So they "love" in a sense similar to the way we do but not identical to the way we do. And that's enough to show that "God is love" is analogical. It is true as stated, but it's true in an analogical sense.

Proinsias wrote:I don't think you are hearing me. Preference for ice cream is a moral issue

And that, brothers and sisters, is the kind of foolishness you get people who insist on denying biblical theism. A good illustration of any as the length people will go to avoid acknowledging basic truths.

Jac3510 wrote:
I agree quite a bit with what you've written here, Mallz. So long as we understand that His hatred and mercy are not two different parts of him, such that when we are unrighteous we relate to Him through this part called wrath and when we are hurting we relate to Him through this part called mercy, then you've stated it very well. To the extent that we speak of divine emotions, we are (like when we're discussing divine attributes) talking about the way that our intellect conceives of this selfsame essence. We are the variable, not Him. It's just that in the case of emotions, our language is analogous twice over. That is, in the case of the normal attributes, we are speaking analogously by one step. So God has power, but because He is identical with His essence and existence, the way in which we think about His power is only similar to how we think of our own. Or put differently, we identify in ourselves this thing called power, and we see that God can be thought of in some very real sense of having power. That's one way to consider the divine essence. Since we are finite, we cannot consider it, in itself, fully and completely, so we have to think about it within one particular mode, and that mode must be from our own perspective. And since our perspective is that of a composite, temporal entity, so we think of God that way. And so while there truly is something "like" power in God, that "likeness" makes our language analogical.

But in the case of emotions, we have a double analogy. So let's take sadness. When you feel sadness (or any other emotion), you have an intellectual judgment of a particular thing and then a physical reaction to that judgment. So a thing judged one way with this particular physical reaction, we call sadness. Now, in God, we have judgments of things (by analogy, of course). But we also have this analogy of an analogy in the idea of a physical reaction. God obviously doesn't have a physical reaction since He isn't physical. Nor does God react. But insofar as the physical reaction is closely related to the nature of the judgment ("that is sad!" we say), there is a sense in which we can see a similar type of "reaction" in God. So that's why I say such language is a double analogy: an analogy of an analogy.

Anyway, as to your question, I say that simply because John wasn't trying to write a metaphysical thesis. If you had asked John if he identified this emotion called love with God Himself, He would be confused by that. He would talk about how important love is and how it trumps all things. But even then he'd be less interested in the emotion per se and what it is rooted in . . . the idea of putting someone else's needs before your own, of doing what is good for them first, and so on. The "others orientedness" of love is what he would focus on, not the physical reaction in your body we experience as "love." John understood clearly that God doesn't have a body. He says that God is Spirit, and spirits don't have physical reactions to anything and so don't feel "love" in precisely the same sense we do. They don't feel anything sense feeling is something that bodies do! So they "love" in a sense similar to the way we do but not identical to the way we do. And that's enough to show that "God is love" is analogical. It is true as stated, but it's true in an analogical sense.

I agree His hatred and mercy are not parts of Him, they're of Him. But I think we as His image we're created to explore and express Him towards everything for eternity. We will never know Him, but we will always try (remind you of marriage?) I think that when we are unrighteous and know it we can feel shame which would only exist against a God and we can relate to His nature through this shame but we know it doesn't end there, nor is it an aspect of Him, but of us. And I see feelings are generated from the spirit, and the body and its interactions are the processions. I don't view feelings as merely chemical reactions and actually view the current state of our body feeling emotions (expressed physically) to be restrictive of what would otherwise be truly expressed by the spirit (which could go into the aspects of a glorified body and why humans never had one to begin with). Humanity is an evolutionary stage for us and to God So, I agree with what you say, but think that we do relate to Him when we are under His wrath, knowingly or not and not only feel the state we put ourselves in physically, but spiritually and towards everything around us.

About the relation of power. I know we can't consider it fully as we will not ever know it fully. But I think the procession of power can be fully known through everything processed from God. And though we are currently finite, we know we are currently not through Christ as being adopted as children of God. I just can't help but have a problem with the term analogy (or analogy of an analogy). Take the instance of John talking about love. I see his words as spirit. I see him when talking about love to not only be talking about the feeling, but the essence of the feeling. We can relate through our feelings but we know love is more than feelings (agape, as you were elaborating on above); I propose the genesis is spiritual and the physical is a procession (this is even more of a hypothesis). So, I see that I mirrored a lot of what you said and we pretty much agree on most points. But I disagree that feelings and emotions are purely physical (even in carnal relation in our state towards Him); they are processions of the spiritual and are dumbed-down and a diminished expression of the spirit.

Jac3510 wrote:I agree quite a bit with what you've written here, Mallz. So long as we understand that His hatred and mercy are not two different parts of him, such that when we are unrighteous we relate to Him through this part called wrath and when we are hurting we relate to Him through this part called mercy, then you've stated it very well. To the extent that we speak of divine emotions, we are (like when we're discussing divine attributes) talking about the way that our intellect conceives of this selfsame essence. We are the variable, not Him. It's just that in the case of emotions, our language is analogous twice over. That is, in the case of the normal attributes, we are speaking analogously by one step. So God has power, but because He is identical with His essence and existence, the way in which we think about His power is only similar to how we think of our own. Or put differently, we identify in ourselves this thing called power, and we see that God can be thought of in some very real sense of having power. That's one way to consider the divine essence. Since we are finite, we cannot consider it, in itself, fully and completely, so we have to think about it within one particular mode, and that mode must be from our own perspective. And since our perspective is that of a composite, temporal entity, so we think of God that way. And so while there truly is something "like" power in God, that "likeness" makes our language analogical.

But in the case of emotions, we have a double analogy. So let's take sadness. When you feel sadness (or any other emotion), you have an intellectual judgment of a particular thing and then a physical reaction to that judgment. So a thing judged one way with this particular physical reaction, we call sadness. Now, in God, we have judgments of things (by analogy, of course). But we also have this analogy of an analogy in the idea of a physical reaction. God obviously doesn't have a physical reaction since He isn't physical. Nor does God react. But insofar as the physical reaction is closely related to the nature of the judgment ("that is sad!" we say), there is a sense in which we can see a similar type of "reaction" in God. So that's why I say such language is a double analogy: an analogy of an analogy.

Anyway, as to your question, I say that simply because John wasn't trying to write a metaphysical thesis. If you had asked John if he identified this emotion called love with God Himself, He would be confused by that. He would talk about how important love is and how it trumps all things. But even then he'd be less interested in the emotion per se and what it is rooted in . . . the idea of putting someone else's needs before your own, of doing what is good for them first, and so on. The "others orientedness" of love is what he would focus on, not the physical reaction in your body we experience as "love." John understood clearly that God doesn't have a body. He says that God is Spirit, and spirits don't have physical reactions to anything and so don't feel "love" in precisely the same sense we do. They don't feel anything sense feeling is something that bodies do! So they "love" in a sense similar to the way we do but not identical to the way we do. And that's enough to show that "God is love" is analogical. It is true as stated, but it's true in an analogical sense.

John 8:58
John 11:35-38

Hebrews 12:2-3 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith;who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,despising the shame,and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

2nd Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not,lest the light of this glorious gospel of Christ,who is the image of God,should shine unto them.